This was originally just a sketch of alternative universe fantasy 19th century anthro-ish Applejack and Big Mac as constables. I thought it was humorous enough that I decided to color it and make a simple background and then it just grew from there. They are constables visiting the local school on career day, to take a break from hunting vampire Rarity. Applejack thinks she's the awesome Big Sis ponies only wish they had, Big Mac wishes he was somewhere else, and Cheerilee wonders why she got the two country bumpkins on the force. Silver Spoon is, of course, not amused.

I went with more of a modern comic booky animu cell shading style. I still want to make a pony comic someday, and layer shading and linework is one of the most economical ways to get something to look like something quick and uniform across multiple panels and pages. Even if hard-core painting-type/color blending stuff is probably the higher/harder road to travel. But that's just an opinion. Sadly, my line art is questionable and I'm working on it. Just like everything else.

The foreground students are supposed to have a bit of a blur thing going on which may or may not be effective.

AJ's in dress uniform, don't worry, she doesn't go out on beat like that. She doesn't care for the dress per se, but she probably likes the hat. AJ's a head constable, Big Mac is just a normal constable. Actually, Big Mac is the only first-rank office at the local police station. The rest of the ponies have crazy titles. Inspector Fluttershy thought it would make everypony happy.

AJ is really damn cute in the picture! The rest of the scene seems a bit dreary, I would think that was intentional because it highlights all the brightness in the center around Applejack and that smile of hers.

As an aside, I think its become a staple in a lot of art to show AJ embarassing her sis at school in some manner. I swear I've seen a few pieces like that by now.

The dreary drab colors are both the intentional old dreary old London effect, and the fact that I *do* overuse dreary colors from time to time. It has been pointed out many times by many people. That's something that I'm working on.

I probably will, I may do that next weekend or over thanksgiving if I have the time. A simple single character full-body portrait would be a good change of pace. Maybe in a daytime urban 19th century London environment as a background? That would be nice. A single character would force me to get into the details a little.

The sad part is, I'm not too sure. I wanted ponies as police. In fantasy england. Fighting vampire ponies. Comically. Then it sort of grew. The actually career day scenario comes from having to look after children during one too many career days.

I edited Big Mac's foot and shrunk it down a slither, as much as I could in the picture. Big Mac has big feet/hooves, but that may have been a bit much. These designs are very much a work in progress so thanks for the feedback. I'll have to play around with them a bit more.

Sad art flub! Can't keep editing it though. Part of my new mental "post more to deviant-art" mindset was to stop editing out mistakes. The first 24 hours or so is fine, missing cutiemarks, silly big feet. But after that, it's just time to note the mistakes, learn the lessons and leave the mistakes up there as a shameful reminder to myself. Otherwise, I tend to get a bit carried away and stop working on new stuff.

I'm really happy that the anthro style seems to work. Awhile ago I tried other pony anthro styles but it always looked off, the characters lost the special ponyness that made them ponies. More realistic proportions looked especially bad. Other artists can sometimes make it work but it wasn't working for me. Since ponies are cute cartoon horses, I begin looking for cute cartoon anatomy. For anatomy proportions I was heavily influenced by manga like Astro Boy and Princess Knight, as well as the more cartoony Megaman art. I figured, these are cartoony, somewhat cute, yet still functional human-like proportions, may as well take a look at them!